Language, Dialect, and Varieties in Kalimantan Barat

1. My Experience

languages in Kalimantan Barat (Kalbar) are diverse. I was born in Melawi, but my

family uses Malay language to communicate to family members. In my experience,

Kalbar people commonly used Malay language, there are dialects and varieties of the

malay language, in addition there are also another major language which are Dayak

language. People usually call bahasa hulu for the east part of Kalimantan Barat. Despite

all the major local languages, Bahasa Indonesia is used as the official language that

connect every language and every people in Kalimantan Barat. Therefore, people still can

communicate even though their mother language are different from the others.

Firstly, the most used language in Kalimantan Barat is Dayak, as the Dayaknese

ethnic cover 34.93% of the no. 1 population in Kalimantan Barat (“West kalimantan”,

2020). I think, Dayak language spread all over Kalbar, Dayak language has many

dialects, however it does not really differ a lot from the others language. I found that it

also has similarity to Malay language. For example, as I asked my Dayaknese friend that

there are differences at the end of the word ‘makan’ in Malay, ‘makatn’ in Dayak

Kanayatn, ‘makai’ in Dayak Iban, and ‘makot’ in Dayak Melawi. Even though there are

some words that might differ each other, in short, the dialects are commonly similar to

each other in Dayak language.

Secondly, the Malay language is the second most used in Kalimantan Barat. Even

though, Malay language has many dialects as they spread in many places, I found out that

there are dialects such as Sambas Malay, Pontianak Malay, Ketapang Malay. Each

language has differences from each other. The difference can be seen by the tones of the

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last word of in letter ‘e’ of the word ‘ngape’. In Sambas Malay the letter ‘e’ in ‘ngape’

sounds as [é] while in Pontianak Malay the letter ‘e’ in ‘ngape’ sounds as [è], however, in

Ketapang Malay, the people tend to add word ‘am’ in the end of the statement or words.

In addition, Bugis Malay is also part of Malay, however, it is not originally from

Kalimantan Barat. Bugis Malay language are originally from Bugis ethnic which are

from the people who moved from Sulawesi to Kalimantan or Kalimantan Barat.

2. The Analysis of My Experience

A language started with simple components which combines the sounds, tones, words

and even signs. According to Hudson (1996) as cited in Wardhaugh (2006, p.10)

language can be called as linguistic items, which contain sounds, words, grammatical

structures andother entities that affect the outcome of the communication. Language

reflects how the people in society as the word language are has similar meaning to

ethnicity. Therefore, language is what the people in specific society speak. As society has

different culture, the language that is produced will also different. The differences appear

to be dialects and varieties.

Meanwhile dialect according to Edward (2009, p.63) dialect is related to the part

of society, it is the variation of language components that has different traits from three

dimensions. Those are vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation (accent). He also

mentions:

“they are forms of the same language, however, dialects are

mutually intelligible. So, while French speakers cannot understand

Fulfulde speakers, Texans can understand Cockneys. If you brew your tea,

pronounce it tay and say Come here ’til I pour you a cup, your friend
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should know what is happening, even if she mashes her tea and would

invite you to the table so that she can pour you a cup. However, we have

all heard some dialects that are almost impossible to understand because

of the degree of variation from our own; thus, mutual intelligibility is

frequently difficult and sometimes merely theoretical.”. in short, as

mentioned before, dialects can be inferred that it is needed to be mutually

intelligible to refer to each dialect even though it has somehow the same

root of language.”. .

At last, Wardhaugh (2006) stated that variety is the vast version of dialects that

has more components than just three dimensions (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation

(accent)). Therefore, the varieties are not constrained in such parts of dimensions of

language.

2.1. The Analysis of Dialects

2.1.1. Dayak Language

As the dialects has three dimensions to differ, the first language that

has been mentioned is Dayak language. However, since the writer never

encounter the society of Dayak language which has many dialects or even

varieties, there are no deep analysis the writer can analyze. However,

Wardhough (2006) mentioned that geographical place that has different major

society that speaks the same language, will produce varities in applying and

constructing the words or vocabulary, language structure, and pronunciation

(accent). It is called regional dialects that varies language in matter of

different geographical places. It is also the same kind of dialect that appear in
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Dayak language. Each geographical area has different kinds of words or

vocabulary, language structure, and pronunciation (accent). Here is small

example in word dimension of the difference among other dialects are at the

end of the word ‘makan’ in Malay, ‘makatn’ in Dayak Kanayatn, ‘makai’ in

Dayak Iban, and ‘makot’ in Dayak Melawi.

2.1.2. Malay Language

Particularly there are many areas that generally use Malay language.

Those area are Pontianak, Landak, Sambas, and Ketapang area in Kalimantan

Barat. The language differences can be found clearly from the pronunciation

of the words. The sounds of a language are as important as the other

components. As my language background is Malay, Malay language has

distinct sounds, tones or pronunciation (accent), and words from other Malay

languages. As mentioned above, difference can be seen by the tones of the last

word of in letter ‘e’ of the word ‘ngape’. In another case, there are also many

different words that can be found among the Malay languages in Kalimantan

Barat. For example, the word ‘celana’ in Pontianak and Sambas Malay are

‘celane’ while in Ketapang are ‘seluar’. Another example are for words ‘sana’

Ketapang Malay uses word ‘senun’, Pontianak Malay uses word ‘sanak’,

Sambas Malay uses word ‘sinun’. Another example is Ketapang Malay uses

Pedareng Beras for particular place used to store rice. For a cooking tool word

‘spatula’, Sambas Malay Sambas uses word ‘penculik’, Pontianak Malay uses

word ‘sudep’, and Ketapang Malay uses word ‘susok’.

2.2. The Analysis of Variety

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Variety counts many dimensions of language. As what Wardhaugh (2006)

mentioned before, varieties do not have any restriction of how it can be built. Then,

the variety that the writer has been encounter only appear to be Malay language since

the writer herself uses Malay. There are some expression or a word that come after a

statement in Ketapang Malay, Pontianak Malay, and Sambas Malay. The variety for

example is the tone that Sambas Malay generally uses is the vocal sound of ‘é’ and

Pontianak Malay sounds it to be ‘e’. The expression example used by Ketapang

Malay is word ‘am’ in the end of words or question while Pontianak Malay uses ‘k ə’,

and Malay Sambas uses ‘ké’. Those show the variety of Malay Language that the

writer has encountered.

3. Conclusion

Kalimantan Barat has quite diverse languages with many dialect and variety of

each of them. The languages that dominate Kalimantan Barat are Dayak Language, and

Malay Language. Dayak language comes with much more diverse dialect that comes

from geographical difference. Additionally, Malay language in Kalimantan has similar

diverse language even though not as diverse as Dayak language. Malay language in

Kalimantan also comes with differences in many dimensions (pronunciation, words).

However, the Malay language has commonly the same language structure (grammar). In

sum, most the dialect and variety happened due to the geographical dialects.
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REFERENCES

Wardhaugh ,R. (2006). An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (5th ed.). Cornwall: Blackwell

Publishing Ltd

Edwards, J. (2009). Language and Identity: An Introduction. New York: Cambridge University

Press

Wikipedia contributors (2020, July 21). West Kalimantan. In Wikipedia. Retrieved 15.:32,

August 5, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Kalimantan